Ok, this always bugged me with people, why do you draw magic? All I did was break down items and got my spells that way. Obviously I couldn't get all the spells and I still needed draw for summons, but it saved me quite a lot of time and I got some pretty good spells at low level. Did I miss something? Is this a better tactic? Have I been playing FFVIII the wrong way my entire life?

I love 9 the best too. I only recently played 7 and thought it was great, and then saw the movie and loved it. I'd place 7 as my second favourite, or tied second with ff4 DS. I'm not sure about 4 yet as I haven't finished it.

That's not really true, people were fawning over and amazed by FF7 even before Advent Children was released. It is quite an incredible game, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that it's the best Final Fantasy or deserves quite the amount of attention it's received, but still a good game.

I enjoyed FF8 but it was a bit of a mess in some aspects.
Why was Ultimecia even trying to compress time? There seemed no point whatsoever (enlighten me if I'm wrong.) Edea was the best sorceress, I think, she was ******* awesome.

Heard the theory of Rhinoa being Ultimecia? That would have made it all work out and would have made it brilliant, but it was confirmed to be false.

Ultimecia was trying to compress time in order to grant her the power of multiple sorceresses from the past, present, and future. Also, in a world of compressed time, she would be the sole survivor thanks to her time magic.
Not sure about the Rinoa theory you mentioned, but a more likely theory I heard is that Rinoa is the sorceress whose power is eventually given to ultimecia. Maybe that's what you heard?

Ultimecia's motivation was a paradox. Because of her actions in the past (the game's present), sorceresses became widely feared and despised after the story ended. This, in turn, resulted in future sorceresses being treated horribly. A young Ultimecia was subject to this, and grew up to be hateful. She decided to hone her powers so she could enact revenge on society, and in the process, learnt that a "legendary SeeD" was destined to slay her. Thus, she used her powers to try and change history, so this SeeD would be stopped, sorceress prejudice would be averted, and she would have her revenge.
In the end, Ultimecia was responsible for her own fate and descent into madness.

That all makes sense but where did you get that from? I don't remember anything about a young her going through that in the game. Also, that didn't answer why she wanted to compress time. Seriously, it seemed to have no reason.

Well, she was slipping through time to undo certain aspects of history anyway, so she probably just decided to go one better, and use her time magic to the fullest. If she could compress all time, she'd be the only creature able to bear or understand it, and so she'd effectively rule the world.

As for her motives, I think additional media (most of which was exclusive to Japan) first explained it. Although there was a motive behind her actions, I think the writers wanted the player to suss it out for themselves, or come to their own conclusion. So the game left out a few details.

originally rinoa was supposed to be ultimecia but they scrapped it last minute. people at square have a habit of ******* over their workers, which is why 12 had vaan instead of being a glorious masterpiece like tactics

I didn't like ff9 for 1 reason. The combat was way too slow. Even if you have auto - haste and have it on the fastest setting, the gameplay is still slower than any other game. 1-3 and 10 didn't have atb so you went at your own pace 4-6 were ok, not too slow. 7-8 were really fast gameplay so it was awesome. But 9... I can just remember the first battle where a majority of the fight was 2 groups staring at each other for 10 seconds before someone makes a move.

Oh, I really recommend it. A lot of people don't like the beginning because it doesn't throw you straight into the fighting like the others, but I'd say to play at least til you leave Evil Forest and enter Ice Cavern to judge.
It's my favourite game of all time, and it's great because it has references to pretty much every previous FF game.